Our Eternal Apocalypse
by gorgeousshutin
Summary: Post-revolution, Touga gets a branding, and Saionji a bum deal. Seinen-verse, but can standalone.


**Synopsis:** Seinen-verse. Post-revolution, Touga got a branding, and Saionji a bum deal.

Utena characters belong to their various owners.

**WARNING:** Contains vague mentioning of sexual abuse.

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><p>Time: 3 months post-revolution<br>Place: Kiryuu Estate, Cabbage Field

"What? This is nothing as bad as some of your old scars."

"Perhaps not," I replied, (hopefully) pokerfaced. "But mine are cuts, not brandings." It took effort looking away from that thing marring his pretty face, which remained noticeable even under the woods' thick shades. "I can always hide them under clothes."

"True." Touga casually retied his mane loosely to one side to again hide his marked cheek. "Your dad was considerate like that."

Even expecting the jab, it got me kicking pebbles off the trail.

"Sure, I've had my share of beatings; that's nothing like what your so-called Father's been doing with you, though."

"Isn't it?"

Since we were kids, Touga had always coped by making my home situation seem equally bad; that, like his eternal quest in dragging me down to his level of misery, was nothing new.

Nor was my habitual returning to him for more, unfortunately.

"So what happened?" Walking ahead of him, I pushed brutishly past those overgrown branches blocking our way. "I never thought he'd take to burning you on top of the perving – which I thought had already stopped since-" I turned at hearing him laugh. "What?"

"Look at us," he gasped, half-leaning against an old tree's trunk; "old friends again roaming our old haunt after all this time, and the conversation is all about our abusive fathers!" He giggled on, like that was actually funny.

"I was away because you got me expelled. " I tried sounding spiteful . . . and failed. The setting sun – painting everything under harsh, fiery shades – revealed just how gaunt the laughing boy had become since I'd last saw him.

Quieting down at my staring, Touga brushed awkwardly passed me and onwards; I followed.

"The Academy readmitted you," he said, as though my managing to return automatically absolved him of whatever disservice he did me. "Things happened, but we're now back to where we once were. You're still my one and only friend, Kyouichi." Clearly, he thought me stupid enough to still care about that.

Damn him for always reading me right.

"What'd you want from me this time?" I finally asked; he'd only ever come to me when you want something.

He stopped suddenly, causing me to stumble into him.

"Hey!"

"Kyouichi." He gestured ahead. "This is where we first met."

We've reached the edge of the woods, just beyond the open fields. Long ago, back when I was a brat fleeing my violent drunkard father, I'd scampered by this very spot, where I then had the misfortune of finding this dishevelled doll of a kid lying unresisting under what I knew even then to be a creep.

"You came at him with a rock." Touga actually sounded wistful there. "You would've smashed his head, had your dad – who worked under him – not showed up then."

That, was the first in that long line of self-detrimental things I've done because of him.

Sensing my softening stance, he leaned back and against my shoulder with much familiarity. " You're the only one who'd do something like that for me."

"Stupid, huh," I said, conscious of his weight, his tickling hair, plus my own stupidity in again allowing him to manipulate me in this same old manner. "I've a goddamned test tomorrow, and I let you drag me all the way out here for-"

"It's because I stopped him from touching Nanami."

I stiffened. Bratty as she was, Touga's little sister – "adopted" by the creep alongside him – had been like my own.

"My punishment, this is."

"I thought he wasn't violent . . . ?"

"That thing I had with the Chairman – who's been protecting me and Nanami this past few years – fell through." Just hearing him mention that again had me tasting bile. "Father's been itching to get back at me; now, he finally can." He glanced expectantly up and at me. "Kyouichi, with you help . . . together, we could get rid of him-"

"You." Only then did I realize just how insane this guy who'd been jerking me around for a full decade really was. "You actually think you can get me to murder this time around."

"You almost did when you were seven," he reasoned, branding again showing from under his shifted hair. "This time, I have a plan. The money will be ours soon as he's gone. You don't have to live under your dad any more. And Nanami, she'd . . ."

As the persuasive words flowed, I noticed the look in his eyes being identical to how I remembered them whenever he contrived to get me in trouble in the past.

Noticed, yet still could not not help him again.

"Touga." I inhaled deeply. "When you say 'plan' . . ."

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><p><strong>Continued<strong> in **Seinen Kakumei Utena**


End file.
